Cars where performing a task that's usually a piece of piss but on this car it's actually a total pain in the arse

[RichardK]

1 hour ago, twosmoke300 said:

For alternators with the sliding sleeve on the long bolt - when the alternator is off, screw the long bolt partially into the sliding sleeve - as if it’s fitted if that makes sense . Then rest the alternator on a vice and give the head of the bolt a tap with a hammer and it will slide the sleeve out a bit and the alternator will drop straight on 

No sleeve, and driveway on my back so no vice - there was a sliding bush in the mount on the car, and in the end I managed to find a way of pushing it back a little I think. Or I got the right perfect angle. It would gave been 20x easier with the wheel off, car jacked up, and more tools.

OTOH it still has three belts, the alternator of which is the last one...

[RichardK]

1 hour ago, Rust Collector said:

I’m surprised it took so long for the Disco 3 to come up, and that nobody has pointed out that you need to take the body off the chassis to put diesel in it/put the key in the ignition/because it’s the second Wednesday of the month etc.

Probably because it's a four-five hour job according to JLR (if you have a proper lift and tools and the car is brand new).

[MiniMinorMk3]

Fan belt on a Mini, a right pain when compared to a Cortina one.

[Low ontime]

2 hours ago, bigstraight6 said:

Oil filter on a MK1 Clio 1.2 petrol, it’s the size of a thimble and very close to the subframe and causes me to use the word cunt many times once a year.

It was even worse on the Williams version if my memory is right… 

think it was at the front and near runs into the rad fins? 

[lotus3512]

Changing the battery on my mums 2018 MINI.......

Step 1: Remove Battery Cover

Step 2: Remove weather rubber weather strip and half of the scuttle panel (battery is located under windscreen)

Step 3: Remove air intake assembly & Air filter box (this is getting silly)

 Step 4: Remove some plastic cladding around the suspension strut which then exposes bolts for;

Step 6: Remove plastic bulkhead which separates battery compartment from the rest of the engine

Step 7: Unfasten battery clamp, disconnect battery and remove.

When I initially looked at it it stumped me a little after taking the battery cover off and lifting up the scuttle and there was still insufficient access to take it out. I consulted the handbook which simply said 'The battery is a non-serviceable item. If you have issues relating to the battery take the car to the main dealer'. Had to use this video to help me remove it in the end (if you would like to see how ridiculous it is). I was (and still am) genuinely shocked at the inaccessibility of it.

 

[Bren]

Another oil filter mare - 2.0 pug used by ford. Most 27mm sockets are too tall, I bought an open ended spanner used for gas bottle regulators.

[Bren]

Another oil filter mare - 2.0 pug used by ford. Most 27mm sockets are too tall, I bought an open ended spanner used for gas bottle regulators.

[bramz7]

When I had my Alfa 156 2.4, to change the battery it was:

Remove engine cover

Move air intake

Unstrap velcro strap 

Unscrew engine side bolt also holding the battery in. A bolt which felt a mile long.

Probably not the worst but crumbs, for a battery! 

[Paul Makin]

Oil level & temp sensor on the Brera 3.2 ?

After forking out an outrageous price for an OEM replacement, if you can find one, you then learn that although it can be done by dismantling the entire front of the car to remove the sump (8-20 hours depending on ability and luck) it's realistically an engine out job

 

[Asimo]

On 25/08/2024 at 08:32, Bmwdumptruck said:

Have you tried holding the lock button for ten seconds or so to see if they will auto close like most do these days? Even my VX combo van does it. 

 

On 25/08/2024 at 08:34, artdjones said:

That seems a bit late for a Renault derived car not to have global closing. Where you press and hold the lock button for a few seconds and all the open windows close. Especially as you have keyless go.

I hadn’t tried that until I read these suggestions.  But no, it doesn’t do anything.
All electric windows are disabled unless the engine is running or stopped in stop/start. 
 

AND you have to remove the engine-undertray to change the oil filter. The undertray is quite heavy 2mm steel and fixed by about 10 6mm screws. Two of which can only be accessed by bending the bumper-skin out of the way after you have undone two of it’s securing screws.

That’s going to happen at every service isn’t it Dacia?

[Mr Pastry]

Caterham Seven 1990-91, the battery was mounted located on the lower chassis  tube alongside the engine.   To remove the battery, you had to remove the inlet manifold, lower steering column, throttle cable and coil.  It was a high-tech, low-maintenance, gel-filled battery, so in theory didn't need much attention.  Unfortunately a gel-filled battery doesn't take kindly to the intermittent use that is typical of a Seven, so they tended to fail quite frequently.  You could get it out from underneath by drilling out the rivets that held the battery tray, bending a chassis bracket, and sometimes undoing the engine mountings and shifting the engine a bit, then re-fitting the battery tray with bolts.  Or you could leave the old battery in place, disconnect it, and install a new one somewhere else.  Advanced engineering?

[IronStar]

1 hour ago, Paul Makin said:

Oil level & temp sensor on the Brera 3.2 ?

After forking out an outrageous price for an OEM replacement, if you can find one, you then learn that although it can be done by dismantling the entire front of the car to remove the sump (8-20 hours depending on ability and luck) it's realistically an engine out job

 

That gen Alfa is really trying it’s hardest to prevent repairs and/or write itself off. 😄

[DavidB]

Thermostat on Smart roadster starts with ‘remove rear bumper” and ends with “wipe tears from cheeks” and “discuss with wife if cuts on hands should require A+E attendance”.

[ETCHY]

21 hours ago, warren t claim said:

A counter thread to my other.

Let's start with headlamp bulbs. To replace a bulb on my Ioniq I had to put it on a ramp, remove both the front wheel and arch liner before doing a decent impression of Katie Price's gynecologist to replace a £45 headlamp bulb.

Said it before, say it again. We have numerous regs for all sorts of shit, but stuff like that, that's safety related is ignored. Should be law you can change bulbs at road side quickly with minimal tools.

[mintwth]

21 hours ago, warren t claim said:

To replace a bulb on my Ioniq I had to put it on a ramp, remove both the front wheel and arch liner before doing a decent impression of Katie Price's gynecologist to replace a £45 headlamp bulb.

With the wheel and arch liner out there's easy access through a spacious void? 

Could be worse

[warren t claim]

3 hours ago, ETCHY said:

Said it before, say it again. We have numerous regs for all sorts of shit, but stuff like that, that's safety related is ignored. Should be law you can change bulbs at road side quickly with minimal tools.

Didn't the Americans create such a law?

[EyesWeldedShut]

6 hours ago, Bren said:

Another oil filter mare - 2.0 pug used by ford. Most 27mm sockets are too tall, I bought an open ended spanner used for gas bottle regulators.

Ahhh - now if you just had happened to own a XUD pug engined car that needed an injector replaced then you'd also have a 27mm tool that fits that oil filter.
Shame mine lay in the depths of the shed for twenty years post-XUD before repurposing...
 

[Madman Of The People]

17 hours ago, warren t claim said:

Didn't the Americans create such a law?

 

I wish!

Meanwhile, changing a battery in a 2015 Ford Kuga/Escape...  Remove the windscreen wipers (yes, seriously), remove the bolts holding the brake fluid reservoir and pull it to the side (no, I'm not joking), remove outer cowl panel, remove inner cowl panel, (because the more, the better, right?), finally disconnect the battery terminals and remove the battery retaining bracket.  You then have to lift the battery at a very specific angle to squeeze it through a very narrow pathway, through all of the other surrounding crap that's in the way.  But the fun doesn't end here.  Now you get to put it all back together!  Yay!!!

Hold on, you're not done yet.  Now you have to perform a "BMS Reset" or all of the car's computers won't be happy.  I've seen 2001: A Space Odyssey, so I know nobody wants an unhappy computer.  Place key in the ignition, turn to on position (do not start the engine), pull indicator stalk outwards five times in succession, press brake pedal three times, say the magic words (available only from Ford at an exorbitant charge!) and wait for battery indicator light on dash to flash.  Now you are finally finished!

They've taken a five minute job in any other car and turned it into a one-and-a-half hour, knuckle-busting ordeal.  Thanks, Ford! 

 

[Zelandeth]

Virtually anything beyond routine servicing on the Saab 900s I owned fell into this category.  Not so much because it was actually complicated - but the general theme to the car seemed to be that why fit any given component in place with a 10mm bolt that's a smidge over hand tight when we could use a 17mm one that was tightened by Thor himself?  Even better if it's positioned such that you can't get any decent leverage onto it when you come to attempt to remove it.

It honestly wasn't the worst car to work on, but I learned after a couple of years that no matter what I was doing, that I needed to at least double my estimated time allotment before I started.

Oil filter on my 1.5TD Corsa B was a pain in the rear because it was buried down the back of the engine and you needed to unbolt and shove to one side the coolant expansion bottle to gain (just) enough access to get it changed from above.  Reckon it would have been a doddle to reach from underneath if you had access to a proper vehicle lift - but fun fact - most people don't!  First time I changed it wasn't helped by the fact that I reckon the filter had been on there for many, many years.

Jag XJ-S V12.  Absolutely any job on the entire damned car.  It was the absolute definition of a car designed by committee where no actual team involved in designing or positioning any single component talked to anyone else - so step 1 in virtually any job was "dismantle the entire car" as one component would be *just* in your way slightly too much for you to shove it out of the way - but you needed to remove two other things to move *that* - and that just snowballed until you had half the car sitting on the drive.  Which was annoying as it was so blatantly obvious that even with it being a fair old packaging nightmare to fit that engine in there, so many of the service headaches were utterly unnecessary.

Anything involving disconnecting fuel lines on a Rover P6.  Rover in their infinite wisdom put the fuel pickup and gauge sender in through the *bottom* of the tank rather than having a dip tube drawing from the top.  Which means that any time you try to remove anything (or indeed you have what would normally be a small leak that would draw air in and cause running issues), it has the full head of however many gallons happen to be in the tank at any given time.  It also means that replacing the fuel gauge sender is a giant faff as you need to drain and remove the tank first...and then worry about getting the new sender to seal properly in the nearly 50 year old tank, which normally would risk causing a bit of an annoying fuel smell on most cars - but here risks having it decant 15 gallons of fuel over the rear brakes when the new seal (and we all know how good quality most rubber products are these days, don't we?) inevitably dissolves.

[Sigmund Fraud]

On 24/08/2024 at 21:05, Christine said:

Oil filter on a Honda hrv vtec 1.6

If you think an oil change on those damn things (and their Civic brethren) is a pain, try doing the cambelt... It almost seems like an elaborate prank that Honda engineers have played on mechanics, from the bizarre need to remove the rocker cover, to awkward access, to that bloody crank pulley bolt that's done to a million zillion lb-ft.

 

[twosmoke300]

38 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Virtually anything beyond routine servicing on the Saab 900s I owned fell into this category.  Not so much because it was actually complicated - but the general theme to the car seemed to be that why fit any given component in place with a 10mm bolt that's a smidge over hand tight when we could use a 17mm one that was tightened by Thor himself?  Even better if it's positioned such that you can't get any decent leverage onto it when you come to attempt to remove it.

It honestly wasn't the worst car to work on, but I learned after a couple of years that no matter what I was doing, that I needed to at least double my estimated time allotment before I started.

Oil filter on my 1.5TD Corsa B was a pain in the rear because it was buried down the back of the engine and you needed to unbolt and shove to one side the coolant expansion bottle to gain (just) enough access to get it changed from above.  Reckon it would have been a doddle to reach from underneath if you had access to a proper vehicle lift - but fun fact - most people don't!  First time I changed it wasn't helped by the fact that I reckon the filter had been on there for many, many years.

Jag XJ-S V12.  Absolutely any job on the entire damned car.  It was the absolute definition of a car designed by committee where no actual team involved in designing or positioning any single component talked to anyone else - so step 1 in virtually any job was "dismantle the entire car" as one component would be *just* in your way slightly too much for you to shove it out of the way - but you needed to remove two other things to move *that* - and that just snowballed until you had half the car sitting on the drive.  Which was annoying as it was so blatantly obvious that even with it being a fair old packaging nightmare to fit that engine in there, so many of the service headaches were utterly unnecessary.

Anything involving disconnecting fuel lines on a Rover P6.  Rover in their infinite wisdom put the fuel pickup and gauge sender in through the *bottom* of the tank rather than having a dip tube drawing from the top.  Which means that any time you try to remove anything (or indeed you have what would normally be a small leak that would draw air in and cause running issues), it has the full head of however many gallons happen to be in the tank at any given time.  It also means that replacing the fuel gauge sender is a giant faff as you need to drain and remove the tank first...and then worry about getting the new sender to seal properly in the nearly 50 year old tank, which normally would risk causing a bit of an annoying fuel smell on most cars - but here risks having it decant 15 gallons of fuel over the rear brakes when the new seal (and we all know how good quality most rubber products are these days, don't we?) inevitably dissolves.

I used to to a lot of the diesel corsa / combo vans when I was younger. Yeh the oil filter was a right dick . The truck was to unscrew it , let it drop then poke your finger in the thread hole and pull it out like that on end . 
This didn’t work so well when someone has done a starter on it before and not put the plastic cover over the large live terminal . Fuck me that woke me up !

[twosmoke300]

16 minutes ago, Sigmund Fraud said:

If you think an oil change on those damn things (and their Civic brethren) is a pain, try doing the cambelt... It almost seems like an elaborate prank that Honda engineers have played on mechanics, from the bizarre need to remove the rocker cover, to awkward access, to that bloody crank pulley bolt that's done to a million zillion lb-ft.

 

Really ?

Plenty plenty much more difficult cambelts about . I’m some pretty humdrum cars too .

[Homersimpson]

Can I offer up the following:

Rear brake discs/bearings on a Jaguar MK2.  For some reason the hubs are ridiculously difficult to get off the halfshaft (even when the cars were fairly modern) and only the proper tool (or cutting the disk off, unbolting the bearing retaining plate and putting the lot in a 30T press as I had to) will do.

Speedo cable on an original mini, especially when the customer has just brought it in and the exhaust is nice and hot.

Rear in board discs on the original S-Type Jag (same as XJ6 Series 1-3 mentioned above).

Wet cambelt on the Ford Ecoboom (yet to do one but wife's is due soon).

[Christine]

25 minutes ago, twosmoke300 said:

Really ?

Plenty plenty much more difficult cambelts about . I’m some pretty humdrum cars too .

My  Civic belt had Mitsubishi printed on it , so it must have been changed sometime in the last 24 years ..therefore i left it alone .   

[Rocket88]

On 24/08/2024 at 22:27, warren t claim said:

Rover P6 rear pad replacement?

Cut hole in boot floor….

[TrabbieRonnie]

Wanna look at your RX8's spark plugs?  Wheel off then...

Don't think they were easy on the old Subaru either iirc.

 

[Sigmund Fraud]

1 hour ago, twosmoke300 said:

Really ?

Plenty plenty much more difficult cambelts about . I’m some pretty humdrum cars too .

Absolutely - but the 1.6 VTEC is a SOHC design in a fairly spacious engine bay, so the job seems unnecessarily difficult !

[Rocket88]

Old Mini bypass hose…. All jobs on old Minis involved lacerations to the base of your neck caused by the bonnet catch. Actually saw an irate mechanic ( after the third neck/ catch interface) hurl an adjustable through the windscreen…

[Erebus]

The air filter on my M47 engined E91 BMW 320d I used to have.  Imagine it's a similar chew on with other M47 and M57 engined BMtroubleyous.  Had to take off or move various things like brace bars, plastic scuttle and pollen filter housing just to access it because it's on the side of the engine. 

The inlet manifold had to come off and possibly some coolant pipes and hoses to do the starter motor as well, I think.

At least the crappy N47 and N57 have conventional air boxes